Latest Stats Debunk The VC Slump Myth — Maybe

There is a lot of talk about a venture capital slump these days, but the real story isn’t so simple. FinTech unicorns — the startups valued at $1 billion or more — are occurring more frequently these days, leading some to believe a bubble is about to burst. That led investors to shy away from major investments in the FinTech space, some analysis has found.

Some more recent statistics, published this month, revealed that the venture capital community closed fewer funds last year and saw a nearly $3 billion decline in the value of those investments compared to 2014.

But a new report from MoneyTree and PricewaterhouseCoopers looks at the venture capital space from a different, more optimistic angle.

The research, released Tuesday (Jan. 19), said corporate venture capitalists hit a new record with their funding rounds, providing $7.6 billion to startups in the U.S. in 2015. That figure marks the highest investment year since 2000, when MoneyTree first started releasing these reports.

[bctt tweet=”Corporate venture capitalists hit a new record with their funding rounds.”]

The figure also represented a 37 percent increase in the volume of funds provided from 2014 and a 21 percent increase in the number of deals closed.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the capital provided by corporate funds into startups as opposed to a third-party fund.

The research, which saw collaboration from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and used data from Thomson Reuters, also noted some particular industries.

Software-as-a-Service, for instance, saw the highest value of corporate venture capital with $2.5 billion funded in 2015 — nearly one-third of all funds provided that year. Analysis also found evidence to support the idea that corporate venture capitalists are funding startups at earlier stages, the companies said.

“In keeping with the trend we witnessed throughout the year, corporate venture groups continue to play an increasingly active role [in] the entrepreneurial ecosystem, seeing the merit in investing in startups to both fund innovation and meet their strategic goals,” said NVCA President and CEO Bobby Franklin,. “It’s encouraging to see corporate venture groups developing more of a taste for early-stage investing. As we move into a new year, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this shift, as well as tracking corporate venture investment into energy companies to see if they remain overweighted in the sector as compared to overall venture investing trends.”